The Golden State Valkyries are worth $1 billion, according to CNBC's 2026 franchise valuations released Tuesday. The expansion team played its first season in 2025.
No other WNBA franchise has crossed ten figures. The Valkyries' valuation reflects 40 regular-season dates at Chase Center, shared sponsorship inventory with the Warriors, and direct access to Joe Lacob's front-office apparatus. The team sold 14,500 season tickets before playing a game. Median resale價 for opening night hit $340 on StubHub the week prior, five times the league average. The franchise fee paid in 2023 was $50 million.
The valuation gap between Golden State and the rest of the league is structural, not speculative. Chase Center operates 220 event days per year; adding WNBA inventory lets the Warriors amortize fixed costs—security, medical staff, event operations—across more dates without building new infrastructure. Sponsorship packages already included Warriors, Valkyries, and Chase Center concert access at signing. Rakuten's $60 million annual deal, signed in 2024, covers both uniforms. The team shares the Warriors' Player Performance Center in San Francisco, a $90 million facility opened in 2019.
Lacob structured the Valkyries as a wholly owned subsidiary of Golden State Warriors LLC, not a separate entity. That means the franchise inherits the Warriors' media rights architecture. NBC Sports Bay Area carries all games not on national broadcast; the regional deal pays an estimated $18 million annually, higher than any other WNBA team's local media revenue. League-wide, the new $2.2 billion media rights agreement with Disney, Amazon, and NBC begins in 2026 and runs through 2036. Golden State's local add-on stacks on top.
Other franchises are rising but remain a fraction of the Valkyries' number. The Las Vegas Aces, two-time champions, are valued near $240 million. The New York Liberty, owned by Joe Tsai and playing at Barclays Center, sit around $210 million. The Minnesota Lynx, four-time champions in a smaller market, are near $90 million. The league added Toronto in 2026; that franchise sold for $115 million at entry, more than double the Valkyries' $50 million fee three years prior.
The Valkyries finished 18-22 in 2025 and missed the playoffs. On-court performance has not yet matched the financial infrastructure. General manager Ohemaa Nyanin, hired from the Las Vegas front office, spent $2.1 million in total payroll, near the league's $2.3 million cap. The team signed forward Azura Stevens to a three-year, $690,000 deal in February 2025, then traded her to Chicago in July for a 2027 first-round pick and $150,000 in allocation money. Head coach Natalie Nakase is in year two of a four-year contract.
The valuation signals what institutional allocators already suspected: WNBA franchises in NBA markets with shared infrastructure are different assets than standalone operations. Family offices that passed on early WNBA opportunities are now paying eight figures for single-digit minority stakes in existing teams. The Portland Trail Blazers are pursuing a WNBA expansion franchise for 2027; the application fee is $150 million, three times what Golden State paid. The league office expects 16 teams by 2028.
Watch the Toronto Raptors' ownership group. MLSE paid $115 million for the Toronto WNBA franchise last year and operates out of Scotiabank Arena, a building with similar economics to Chase Center. If Toronto's valuation crosses $500 million by 2028, the market will have confirmed the thesis: co-located franchises with NBA-grade facilities are worth multiples of standalone teams. The Valkyries are not an outlier. They are a blueprint.
The takeaway
The WNBA's first billion-dollar franchise proves co-located teams with NBA infrastructure are structurally different assets; expect Toronto and Portland to follow the model.
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